RETURN TO HOLLAND

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 February 1941, Page 5

RETURN TO HOLLAND

BY FORMER PREMIER DENOUNCED AS BREACH OF LOYALTY. DECLARATION BY EXILED GOVERNMENT. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright* LONDON. February 6. The former war time Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Mr Dirk Jan de Geer, in spite of solemn assurances to the contrary, has returned to Holland. Announcing in Londpn. with profound indignation, de Geer's departure from Lisbon for Holland the Royal Netherlands Government adds that he formed the present Cabinet in June, 1939, and retained the leadership till last September, and thus, as the head of the Government when the Germans invaded Holland, he had an important share in the Cabinet's unanimous decision to go to London from The Hague with Queen Wilhelmina. Some time after de Geer’s resignation from the premiership the Government entrusted him with a mission to the Netherlands East Indies and he left England last November under the express condition that the official facilities granted him were exclusively for the purpose of the Netherlands Government in London.

"It is now our plainful duty,” the official statement, says, "to declare de Geer’s conduct a breach of loyalty and also an act detrimental to the national interest. The unfortunate incident is in nowise capable of an .interpretation indicating any change in the Royal Netherlands Government's firm determination to continue the war against Get many alongside Britain till victory.” Do Geer was Prime Minister of the Netherlands also from 1926 to 1929.